“Don’t believe anything you read or hear, and only half of what you see.”— John Jankovich (1890-1971)

There has been an uproar as of late about fake news stories.

Fake news is nothing new. It started with Willian Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer I when Pulitzer’s New York World and Hearst’s New York Journal vying for the top paper began to change their stories by adding more sensationalization to their content including the increased use of cartoons.

This became known as “yellow journalism”, this was the beginning of what is called tabloid journalism, that one sees at grocery line checkout stands.

There was once a time where journalists like Walter Cronkite, Clete Roberts, Edward R. Morrow and others were considered trustworthy sources of news.

Somewhere along the rating battles for the top news source, advertising, and dwindling newspaper readership, television viewership started to create an instant news environment but the in-depth reporting found in newspapers was no long viewed in the same manner before television was invented.

Today, anyone with a computer, smartphone or tablet along with Internet access can post a story, no fact checking necessary. It’s called “citizen journalism” and not held to any standards.

“Rumors are like songbirds; they sound filling but make a poor feast.” MICHAEL GEAR & KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR,People of the Nightland

Can you believe in the veracity of the author of articles read online or heard on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC or other sources where people incur their news?

Is there reporting bias?

Is there a concealed agenda from topmost management?

What obfuscation is potentially perpetrated by so-called sources that do not vet references with exhaustive fact checking via multiple sources before branding a story as legitimate news?

Many may not remember, but both CBS and NBC have been scammed with so-called news only to find out that is was more hoax than legitimate news because they did not perform due diligence and vetting their sources with multiple sources because of tight deadlines and trying to get the story out first for ratings instead of getting it correct.

This is not an indictment of citizen journalism. As a receiver of news, it behooves that one relies on more than one source.

During the 2016 Presidential Election, the veracity of the candidates was called into question on numerous occasions and found false statements under the scrutiny of fact checking.

The gist of this post to follow the quote attributed to John Jankovich above.

Many of you have never heard that name, he was someone born in 1890. He was a special person in my life and someone whom I greatly respected. He was my maternal grandfather. I can’t think of anyone I respected more than him.

John Jankovich taught me many life lessons. He also taught me many techniques of how to prepare certain types of seafood from shell to table. He was a man of many talents, working with his hands and lessons learned just by living through some catastrophic years in his 80 years on the planet (1890 – 1971), I turned 26 in September of 1971.